The invention relates in general to cutting shears and, more particularly, to cutting shears for metallic wire and cable, wherein the article being cut is centrally supported between semi-circular cutting edges.
The requirement for severing a length of wire or cable is one of the more common problems encountered in the electrical and electronic trades. To make connections, to prepare splices, to subdivide cable hardnesses, and to perform many similar operations it is necessary to sever the cable, formed of one or more metallic conductors, with or without insulating sheaths.
Cable cutters of the prior are come in several forms. So-called `dikes,` or diagonal cutters, have short, sharp cutting blades whose cutting edges are laterally aligned, so that the cutting action is not in pure shear, but rather in compression. In some cutters only one blade is sharp and the other is a flat anvil to support the cable. In other forms, the cutting edges are formed into shears, that is, blades which slide past each other; but in the devices of the prior art these blades are either straight, or curved in the same rotational sense.
One of the great disadvantages of the cutters of the prior art lies in the tendency of the cable to extrude out of the blade jaws, due to the axial force component developed as the blades close from an open -- relatively angled -- alignment toward a parallel position at the end of the cutting stroke. Another disadvantage lies in the tendency of the cable to be squashed flat between the blades, distorting the shape of the cable, almost invariably circular, and in the case of multiconductor cables scrambling the order thereof.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the invention to provide cable-cutting tools which do not develop unbalanced axial forces during the cutting stroke and, hence, have no tendency to eject the cable from between the cutting blades.
It is another object of the invention to provide cutting shears which develop a minimal tendency of distorting originally circular wires and cables in applying the forces necessary to sever same.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a wire and cable cutter satisfying the aforementioned objects which is simple and economical to construct, easy to use and which can be embodied in a hand tool of substantially conventional construction and operation.